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By "The 5x-tractor " " Out of evil cometh good" is a trite enough saying, but I do not remember it being so well exemplified as in the case of the recent railway strike with regard to its effect upon the commercial-vehicle industry. The opportunity for many long talks with vehicle manufacturers has occurred this last week in London, and therein there has been one prevailing exultant note. The superior utility of the motor vehicle has been practically brought home in a way at once convincing and unique. I venture to think the strike has proved to be worth five years of ordinary missionary work amongst potential users. Manufacturers must not fail to follow up this advantage. Instances have been related to me again and again as to how the motor lorry, both petrol and steam, saved the situation by bringing up supplies and making deliveries for factories and mills in every part of the land. I was speaking of our "One Day's Work" series of articles, the practical nature of which has already been wonderfully convincing to a prominent maker, and his comment was that we should revert to them, and that quickly, as, since the strike, the good effect on the present user of horses would be tenfold. There are, of course, many districts where one railway line alone serves, and in such cases railway rates are as fixed as the laws of the Medes and Persians. The ubiquitous motor lorry has set the railway company "furiously to think" the advantages of the absence of terminal cartage. The -flexibility of self-propelled transport has been so well demonstrated now that it has been brought fairly home to the horse users. Therefore I venture to suggest manufacturers should "follow up their advantage." [Our edi torial considerat:on of this subjsct, our supporters will recall, was embodied in leading articles in the issues of the 17th and 24th August last ; they were entitled "The Independence of Motor Conveyance and "The Only Way," respectively. —ED.
"It takes intelligent persons to differ," said the chairman at the annual banquet of the S.M.M.T., Agents' Section. The new Sheriff of the City of Nottingham is fast becoming a speaker quite out of the ordinary. The opportunities afforded by civic life, combined with considerable natural aptitude for forensic display, accounts for it, I suppose. Anyhow, here flowed simple eloquence and the great gathering, hushed and impressed, listened silently and greedily to every word. A subsequent speaker was Mr. A. N. Mobbs, one with the stature of a Lifeguardsman in some contradistinction to the new sheriff. The audience was greatly tickled when Mr. lielobbs bracketed Mr. Atkey and himself together with the remark : " some of us have short chassis and some have long chassis." He further said nice things about the Press generally and made a graceful reference to the part which our sister paper "The Motor" had played in a question which all had very much at heart, viz., that of price cutting. Mr. J. Stafford was heartily called upon although not on the programme ; he added a stirring appeal for agents to join the M.T.A. The Agents' Section is certainly very much alive, and, although the motor agent, speaking generally, has not striven much up to now in the missionary work of converting the user of "commercial horses," he will want to come in. I suppose, now that things are so rapidly developing. Their combination is undoubtedly a strong one, and, as one speaker said, "where there is a good cash balance and a good healthy sentiment, something has to move."
"Life would be tolerable but for its pleasures." This is an old cynicism, of course, but if there be a time in the course of the year when it strikes home with appalling truth, it is in the life of a. motor Pressman during the Olympia week. Goodness knows the day itself is full enough of appointments and interviews, interspersed with the unending revival of old friendships—all of which are full of interest and charm. But when this sort of thing has been going on for days, and there are yet to be faced still more Show dinners and still more late hours for which our fresh country visitors have been storing up energy, then the above-quoted maxim does not appear so exaggerated after all.
A topic discussed in most of its phases last week was the Exhibition question. I reported in our last issue that the 8.M.M.T. had secured the Agricultural Hall for next November, and many thoughts and arguments were directed for and against the Hall being a suitable place and as to the time being ripe for the long-deferred commercial-vehicle show. The opinions I heard expressed were mainly against such an eventuality. The White City idea—of a great combined exhibition — found more favour. If the Shows were separated, it was felt, the smaller hall would fail because people cry " content " after visiting one Show.